Description
Book SynopsisTable of ContentsPrologue viii
Introduction 1
Two Reasons to Study Ancient Greek Philosophy 1
The Organization and Strategy of This Book 7
1 The Presocratics 11
Preliminaries 11
Before the Beginning: Hesiod 12
The Ionian Philosophers of the Sixth Century 18
a) The Beginning: Thales of Miletus 18
b) The First Debate: Anaximander v. Anaximenes 22
c) Sixth-Century Rationalism: Xenophanes and Pythagoras 26
d) The Crisis of Sixth-Century Philosophy 31
Heraclitus and Parmenides: Extreme Solutions 33
a) Heraclitus: Lover of Flux 33
b) Parmenides: Champion of Being 42
Fifth-Century Elementalism 51
a) Democritus: Atomic Theory 52
b) Empedocles: Evolution 61
c) Anaxagoras 65
2 The Sophists and Socrates 69
A New Beginning: The Sophists 69
Protagoras 71
Gorgias 79
Socrates 83
3 Plato 95
Preliminaries 95
Plato’s Critique of the Presocratics 98
Plato’s Critique of the Sophists 105
a) The “Self-Reference” Argument 106
b) The Reductio ad Absurdum 107
c) “What is it?” 112
d) “The Old Quarrel”: Philosophy v. Sophistry 119
Recollection 120
a) The Phaedo 120
b) The Meno 125
The Divided Line and the Form of the Good 132
a) The Divided Line 132
b) The Form of the Good 138
Eros 140
The Political Implications of the Forms 153
4 Aristotle 167
Preliminaries 167
Aristotle’s Conception of Nature 173
a) “By Nature” 173
b) Form and Matter 182
c) The Four Causes 186
Aristotle’s Psychology 194
Teleological Ethics 208
a) Moral Virtue 208
b) Intellectual Virtue 220
Natural Politics 224
a) The Political Animal 224
b) Best Life; Best City 231
Conclusion 235
Epilogue 241
Appendix 257
References 269
Index 275
